armadillo1224

The idea that a man should have to be "encouraged" to be a father is so bizarre to me. If he really wanted to be a dad, a lack of "encouragement" from Lorelai or anything else she did to push him away (and it's not like she was taking him to court) should not have been a deterrent. He clearly didn't want to be a father that much, if a lack of encouragement was enough to keep him away. I feel like the way we talk about Christopher is so dependent on his gender. Can you imagine how we would talk about a mother who only visited her child's hometown once during the first sixteen years of the child's life? We just expect much less from men, as parents, so a guy who can barely bother to call his daughter is just someone who didn't get enough encouragement.

This is your personal feelings about the characters, not what is in the text. And more than a tad over-dramatic for a sibling rivalry between a nine-year old and an eleven-year old (after all they have been through they were parted, I'm pretty sure the two care a lot less than you do about preteen squabbles). It is pretty clear that Arya and Sansa are central figures in each other's stories, however you feel about this. I mean, Sansa was literally created to be Arya's foil. Of course they are central to each other's stories.

That is what she said, she said she was pretty and that she spoke Hindi well. It seemed like a pretty standard polite thing for an older woman to say to a young woman. I didn't see it as an "Apu accent" at all--that is, from what I can tell, the Indian actress's actual accent.

I grew up in the same neighborhood as the protagonist (Jackson Heights, Queens) and am also a South Asian immigrant (this was half the reason I was really excited to see this show--this is not a community I've ever seen portrayed on TV before) and the parents' reactions have mostly seemed realistic to me--the one unusual thing is the lack of crying or emotional displays. At first, I could understand it as them being in shock but they've consistently been very buttoned down about their emotional reactions which, given that their whole lives have basically been ruined out of nowhere, seems unusual and is certainly not a cultural trait. Also, I think that though initially, they would be focused on nothing but concern for their son, eventually, some anger and resentment at his terrible decisions (the alcohol and drugs especially, not to mention stealing the taxi) would seep through. What I have found relatable and realistic is their incredible sense of vulnerability. First-generation immigrant lives are very, very fragile and one wrong decision can completely upend what people have built for decades because there is not multi-generational wealth, no useful social networks, no connections, no real understanding of the system.

Well, they would speak Urdu but Urdu is basically the same language as Hindi and fully mutually intelligible. Having a common language and coming from the same part of the world go a long way in making two sets of people feel comfortable with each other, when they are both immigrants in a foreign country, even if there is some sort of ethnic or geopolitical conflict going on a world away.

I think the emphasis on wildfire is just to foreshadow Cersei blowing everything up at some point.

I feel like Dany's storyline this season and perhaps most seasons has just been a bunch of "epic" moments strung together. No character development, no conflict, no growth, just a lot of lighting shit on fire and making the exact same speech over and over and over again with progressively larger dragons.

Wait, are you saying that the only reason modern siblings do not develop sexual interest in each other is because of social pressure? I feel like that's a rather bizarre assertion. Sibling incest has been taboo in almost every known society--it's hardly some new-fangled 21st century thing. The cousin incest taboo is relatively new but that's a different matter. In the books, I think it's accepted simply because it makes sense. Their attraction to each other is a reflection of their narcissism and it's never sold as some sort of great love story but rather something incredibly screwed-up and dysfunctional. I feel like there's an implication that Cersei is an innately evil person in the books basically from birth (just look at that story about her pushing her friend in the well or twisting Tyrion's penis) and she seduces Jaime into this evil, dark love affair that is extremely bad for him. So, I think it's easier to accept just because it's portrayed as one villainous and one formerly villainous character doing something bad and wrong. In the show, I'm not really sure what they're doing. I don't think they view the twincest as something positive or healthy or romantic but I think they just don't have the time to devote to that storyline right now to break them up (as they are in the books at this point) so it's become part of the show's baseline reality. I don't know very many people who would even view the TV version of the relationship as a great love story, even if is not as overtly fucked up. It's just there and because it's been there for six seasons, it's no longer shocking.

They've only been apart for two years at most. I don't think that's much, compared to a whole childhood of viewing each other as siblings. There's an actual psychological effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westermarck_effect) that is believed to exist between any two people who are raised from birth in the same home that makes the notion of incest so intrinsically distasteful to most people (assuming a normal dynamic). Even if Sansa didn't feel close to Jon or he to her, it really just doesn't gel with my understanding of how human nature and families work for them to even be able to feel attracted to each other. The whole thing just feels wrong to me and I know that it will to many, many viewers, if it's the direction they choose to go in. Though I really doubt they will.

If he had a child from a previous marriage, sure but a child he had during an extramarital affair while they were married? You really think a typical woman would be okay raising the child of her husband's adulterous affair? I wouldn't be that confident of it.

Do you really think general TV audiences could ever root for a Jon/Sansa romance? They are characters who were raised from birth to believe they were brother and sister and that is how their dynamic certainly reads in the show right now. I don't know you could possibly sell it as a traditional romance to root for. All the incest on this show so far has been portrayed as disordered, unnatural and vaguely villainous. I have so much trouble seeing it as the romantic endgame for such a traditional good guy protagonist as Jon. I guess I"m just surprised by how confident some people in this thread seem to be that Jon/Sansa is the endgame. Is it nothing more than speculation based on the original GRRM outline from twenty years ago or is there some other basis?

Rape and 'standard' sexual abuse can leave behind plenty of physical pain and traces on their own. You don't need to have been mutilated to still feel the experience of rape in your body. I think going to something like FGM is a very bizarre misreading of the scene. We have had three straight seasons of Ramsay torturing people in grotesque ways. I doubt the showrunners would add in any more, especially in a storyline that was already heavily criticized for being gratuitous and exploitative. Whatever they say, they have clearly been dialing back the level of sexual violence in this show.

I really enjoyed this episode and am excited for this season, moreso than Game of Thrones. I thought it was really interesting that they chose to make Jekyll mixed-race because that kind of fits perfectly (and I am intrigued to see how they would portray the experience of a non-white person in Victorian London who is not a servant) and I also appreciate that they have two new minority characters who hopefully, will get a bit more depth and screen-time than Sembene did. It was great to finally see Dracula and I'm glad that Patti Lupone returned--her presence is exactly what Vanessa needs, though the therapy scene seemed kind of unsettlingly modern to me. I'm kind of confused that neither Vanessa nor Victor seemed to have kept tabs on each other, as they were both clearly spiraling into some very dark places.

I mean, Carrie almost killed her baby like two weeks ago and was 100% on-board with taking out Saul to get to Haqqani, so I'm not sure that, if that was indeed the point, it was delivered very effectively. I think those kinds of ironclad "us vs. them" distinctions tend to be pretty shallow. Homeland has changed a lot (and not for the better) since it started but I've always felt that that was one of its most important original themes, something very distinctive for a terrorism thriller--that people on "our" side do a lot of horrible things too and that in any conflict like this one, there's lots of shades of gray.

I really don't understand why this distinction is important. Clearly, the original scene unsettled a lot of people and that was because of the weird power differential. The difference between what power and authority mean seems immaterial. Also, you can tell an authority figure to go screw themselves too. No one ever really has to do what anyone else says. I don't think we know nearly enough about him to make this conclusion yet. Also, being related to a terrorist doesn't disqualify you from being innocent.